Governing the impact of emerging technologies: Actors, technologies, and regulation

Abstract

The rapidly growing impact of emerging technologies has spurred calls to reign in their proliferation and use. How and to what end are different international actors governing and capitalising on the impact of emerging technologies, and what regulatory strategies are successful? This special issue focuses on governance strategies to deal with emerging technologies, ranging from multilateral and bilateral regulation to unilateral deterrence policies. Employing historical and comparative case studies and leveraging novel data sets, the authors find that the success of technology governance depends on a complex mix of actors involved, the timing of regulation, and the nature of technology.